Eleanor Stackhouse Atkinson

“ It seems a pity that a monkey can only chatter or scream or scold, for he tries ever so hard to talk. Such a mischief he is, too. If he sees a chance he will snatch a little girl's doll or a lady's hat and tear them in pieces. He knows very well such behavior is naughty, for he scrambles out of reach of punishment, and chuckles with glee over the trick. It's easy to forgive the little rascal, for the next instant he does something engaging. He cuddles his baby, or cracks a peanut like a squirrel, turns a hand-spring for you, or slyly pulls another monkey's tail. ”

“ A curtain of gauze seemed to be hung before the lighted tenements. The Castle head vanished, and the sounds of the drum and bugle of the tattoo came down muffled, as if through layers of wool. The lights of the bull's-eyes were ruddy discs that cast no rays. Then these were smeared out to phosphorescent glows, like the "spunkies" that everybody in Scotland knew came out to dance in old kirkyards.
It was no' canny. In the smother of the fog some of the little boys were lost, and cried out. Mr. Traill got them up to the gate and sent them home in bands, under the escort of the students. ”

“ Day after day a camel caravan travels in this way, covering hundreds of miles, and touching at lonely green islands of oases. Sometimes a great wind storm sweeps over the desert, hiding the sun and filling the air with a blinding, stinging rain of sand. Down the animals drop, under their loads. They stretch their necks out straight, shut their eyes, close their nostrils to the narrowest slits, and lie still. ”

“ You like to rub the silken pussies on your cheek, and you almost expect to hear them purr. But in a few days they swell and stretch and bristle, like kittens with their backs up about something, until every gray hair shows a grain of yellow pollen under it. Shake a twig and see the gold dust fly!
The big willow trees know better than to bloom so early, when Jack Frost nips foolish pussies. When the April sun is quite warm, the black willow takes the brown water-proof caps from its flower buds, and pushes out some catkin tails as scaly as pine cones. ”

“ Wind is air that is in a hurry. You can feel it. Draw a quick breath. You felt a tiny wind in your nose, didn't you? You cannot feel air, but you can feel wind, or air in motion. You can feel the temperature of air, too. Your skin tells you if air is hot or cold. You can feel if it is damp or dry. You cannot smell air, but you can smell odors in it—the perfume of flowers, the freshness of rain, bad odors of decay, or smoke. You can train yourself to tell if the air in a room is fresh or stale. ”

“ On the slightest alarm the babies vanish! Not one is in sight as the herd goes bounding away. The little ones are not on their mama's backs, and there are no holes in the ground big enough for them to go into.
Watch the kangaroos feeding in the zoo, and maybe you can solve the puzzle of the disappearing babies. There doesn't seem to be a baby in the pen. Suddenly a little head, no bigger than a mouse's bead, pops out of the fur on a mother's breast, like a jack-in-the-box, and pops back again. That is surprise number two. The mother kangaroo has a deep, flat, fur-lined pocket on her stomach. ”

“ As soon as the door of the caretaker's lodge opened he would have to creep under the fallen slab again. To lie in such a cramped position, hour after hour, day after day, was enough to break the spirit of any warm blooded creature that lives. It was an exquisite form of torture not long to be endured. And to get his single meal a day at Mr. Traill's place Bobby had to watch for the chance opening of the wicket to slip in and out like a thief. The furtive life is not only perilous, it outrages every feeling of an honest dog. ”

“ The giraffe's lustrous brown eyes are like those of the woodland deer, in beauty and gentleness, but they are set out from the head even more than the camel's eyes. Indeed, the giraffe can pushhis eyes out sideways, as if they were on stalks, and look around behind him without moving his head. Wouldn't he make a grand school teacher? No other animal has eyes just like the giraffe's, and no other grazing animal has an eighteen-inch long, barbed rubbery tongue that he can stretch up another foot, twist around a bunch of leaves and pull them down. ”

“ These pollen threads are very ready to drop their yellow dust and broaden into petals. And they are just as ready to turn back again. If the seeds of the finest, double garden roses are planted, they sometimes forget all their long training, and go back to the single-petaled blossom and straggling canes of the wild rose. They have to be grown from cuttings to keep them tamed.
Left alone, nature might never have made one of our double roses of the garden. She doesn't seem to care to make the flower better. All she thinks about is the seed. ”

“ The camel stretches and twists and feels its food with this thick, split lip as if it were two fingers. He doesn't seem to look at his food at all. So you are quite ready to believe he has never learned not to eat poisonous plants that grow on the desert. A herd of browsing camels has to be watched as close as a flock of silly sheep.
Everything about a camel is as queer as if you had dreamed him in a nightmare. His neck and legs look too long and sprawling for his body. ”

“ Once, perhaps, there were no lions, as we see them today, only big striped and spotted cats that slowly changed into lions because of the open plains they had to hunt on. In the dancing sunspots and shadows of the leafy jungles, and in the foliage of thick trees, the tiger and leopard are safely hidden, but on level, treeless, brown plains they could be seen a long way off. But, while he had to paint out his spots and stripes, the African lion grew a beautiful dark mane that makes his head appear much larger, fiercer and nobler than that of any other cat. ”

“ It is the maples that first light up our woods with these flickering fires. No country of the old world has trees that make such a wonderful color show as our maples. Their leaves are never of one tint, but are mottled and shaded, from lemon yellow to orange, flame-red and crimson. You know the thin-leafed red maple sifts sunlight. To look up through one, in the fall, is like looking through a splendid stained glass window of a church.
The oaks show no yellow, and the leaves are of a strong solid color. ”

“ The old world brown bear is the tamest of all. He will sit upon his haunches, cross his paws over his breast and catch peanuts in his mouth. Sometimes, when the band plays, he will dance and gambol about like a big, playful dog. The smaller, fine-coated black bear is friendly sometimes; but often he climbs the oak tree in his pit, folds his limp body across a big limb, like your mama's rug muff, and sulks or sleeps. You couldn't coax him down with a pot of honey! The big "grizzly" bear has an ugly temper. ”

“ The one clever thing she can do is to cut tunnel roads in undergrowth. Bunny slips and winds through these six-inch mazes of runways she has patiently cut with her teeth. There she puzzles and tires out dogs and foxes by crossing the scent, and so gets away. A sociable little creature, Molly lives a fugitive life and all alone, for safety. On some brambly hill-side, you may come upon the shallow nest she has scooped out and lined with white fur from her own breast. ”

“ There are dragon-flies, ant-lions, tiger-beetles and spiders. But some of them have quite innocent names, such as frog, toad and lady-bird.
Wouldn't mosquitoes and flies and gnats be indignant, if they knew that we think the dragon fly beautiful? But it is as beautiful as any butterfly, and in its darting, skimming flight it is as swift and graceful as a swallow. It really is the swallow of the insect world. It catches and eats its food on the wing, and it eats nothing but flying creatures smaller than itself. ”

“ None were abroad in the Cowgate; and that was lucky for, in this black hole of Edinburgh, even so old and poor a man was liable to be set upon by thieves, on the chance of a few shillings or pence.
Used as he was to following flocks up treacherous braes and through drifted glens, and surefooted as a collie, Auld Jock had to pick his way carefully over the slimy, ice-glazed cobble stones of the Cowgate. He could see nothing. The scattered gas-lamps, blurred by the wet, only made a timbered gallery or stone stairs stand out here and there or lighted up a Gothic gargoyle to a fantastic grin. ”

“ It is very wonderful how quickly a child catches an idea. In his play, he reproduces big things on a small scale. He can make a satisfactory rain with a watering pot, so he will understand the vapor cloud made by a boiling tea-kettle. Most, if not all, of the properties of earth, air and water, can be made plain to a child by just such simple means always near at hand. Air is really no more difficult than the other two. The child already knows temperature, and wind, or air in motion. The little hot-air balloon and the flying bird are among his earliest objects of wonder. ”

“ There is just one thing for which the camel has a softer feeling. The mother camel shows affection for her baby. After the day's march she has him all to herself. She nurses him, she nuzzles him with her sensitive hare-lip. He cuddles up to her for warmth. After the terrible heat of the day the night on the desert is often cold. But it is very still and clear. She can feast her eyes on her baby, for the dark, blue-velvet dome of the sky is hung all over with little golden lamps of stars. ”

“ They take up no useful room, and they earn their own living. At the same time they make the world a more beautiful place to live in.
They have so many human ways. They love their mates; they care so tenderly for their babies. They have such skill, such industry, such courage, such devotion to duty, such grace of movement and beauty of plumage and voice. Don't you think, since they help us so much, we should be willing to help them a little? All they want is protection, and a little help in the kind of food they need, where wild fruits and seeds do not grow. ”

“ There are times when he reads trouble, that he cannot help or understand, in the man's eye and voice. Then he can only look his love and loyalty, wistfully, as if he felt his own shortcoming in the matter of speech. And if the trouble is so great that the master forgets to eat his dinner; forgets, also, the needs of his faithful little friend, it is the dog's dear privilege to bear neglect and hunger without complaint. Therefore, when Auld Jock lay down again and sank, almost at once, into sodden sleep, Bobby snuggled in the hollow of his master's arm and nuzzled his nose in his master's neck. ”

“ A baby elephant is as solemn as an Indian papoose. But in his own clumsy way he is very playful. He plays hide-and-seek between his mother's legs, and pulls her foolish little tail with his trunk. When anything alarms him, he gets right under her and shuffles along that way. And when she crosses a stream he climbs on her back until he learns to swim. In one thing he doesn't get over being a baby until he is a grandfather. He spends half his life cutting new teeth. An elephant has twenty-four grinding teeth in all, but he cuts and uses only four at a time. ”

“ In that wild garden were four varieties of clover—the white, creeping clover of blue-grass lawns; the pinkish purple-headed clover of farm meadows; the tall, shrub-like sweet clover, with tassel blossoms of white, and a blood-red clover, with pointed heads like pine cones. The crimson clover is a foreigner. Grown all over Europe, it is not often seen in America. In that wild garden it was a well-born emigrant among hardy and rough American weeds. ”

“ On very hot midsummer days there often seems to be nothing on the wing but these glitter-winged dragons of the air, and their swarms of little victims. Some of them skurry to shelter in the water weeds if a cloud blows up, but others love to frolic with the wind, and will even go out over white-capped waves on the sea shore. ”

“ To the children of America the camel is as strange and interesting as many of the fiercest wild animals. We know less about him than we do about bears. He tells you very little about himself, and he shows no curiosity about the crowds that visit his pen at the zoo. He gazes over people's heads in a dreamy way, just like that old stone sphynx head that stares across the desert in Egypt. One bright little boy once said: "A camel is a great, big, ugly puzzle." ”

“ From the end of the bridge approach there was a glimpse of massive walls, of pointed windows, and of monumental tombs through a double-leafed gate of wrought iron, that was alcoved and wedged in between the ancient guildhall of the candlemakers and a row of prosperous little shops in Greyfriars Place.
A rock-rimmed quarry pit, in the very heart of Old Edinburgh, the Grassmarket was a place of historic echoes. The yelp of a little dog there would scarce seem worthy of record. ”

“ Winds that break off great limbs of trees and almost blow you off your feet, will merely rock these babies in their cradles. And under the blankets of leaves and snow, the fallen seeds will lie asleep, as snugly as Johnny Bear in his cave. The first warm days of spring they will wake up, yawn so wide that they will split their shells, stretch their leaf-arms up to the sun, and dig their root-toes into the soft earth. ”

“ At night, when a caravan is in camp, the little children of the chief drink cups of the camel's thick, cheesy milk mixed with water. On the chief's table is camel flesh, as juicy and tender as beef. The herders wear robes and turbans of brown, camel's hair cloth. The master sleeps under a camel's hair tent. Without this ugly, stupid, useful beast, the hot deserts of the Old World would lie unpeopled and unknown. The camel knows nothing of his value and cares less. Like the desert itself, he submits to be used, but remains wild. Sullen and forbidding, he holds his master a stranger. ”

“ After a number of mornings Bobby lost interest in the man and his occupation and went about his ordinary routine of life as if the artist was not there at all. One morning the wee terrier was found sitting on the table-tomb, on his haunches, looking up toward the Castle, where clouds and birds were blown around the sun-gilded battlements.
His attitude might have meant anything or nothing, for the man who looked at him from above could not see his expression. And all at once he realized that to see Bobby a human being must get down to his level. ”

“ The elephant is the children's delight. Draped in purple and gold he walks with the tread of an emperor before a conquered army. All the other wild beasts are in cages, but he, the largest and strongest of them all, a three-ton mountain of an animal, is led by his keeper as if he were a big, good-natured dog. And oh, if there is a baby elephant the children just about go crazy. ”